Speakers

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis and tested approaches, Understanding by Design answers these questions and offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

Understanding by Design: Professional Development Workbook extends the ideas presented in Understanding by Design (Ubd) by focusing on professional development and the practical matters of curriculum design. The Workbook is a guide for UbD workshops and undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as further independent exploration. It provides a valuable resource to educators in developing curricula and assessments with a focus on developing and deepening students' understandingof important ideas.

Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design explains how to connect these two approaches and use their combined power to meet content standards and prepare for tests. While providing students with multiple learning pathways, use the backward design approach to develop curriculum units and lessons that can be differentiated in response to students’ different needs and levels. Combine drill and practice with differentiated performance tasks to inspire understanding of content and create a fair, criterion-referenced assessment approach that supports standards and differentiation.

In Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement, Robert Marzano shows how a carefully-structured combination of two approaches -  sustained silent reading and instruction in subject-specific vocabulary terms - can help overcome the deficiencies in background knowledge that hamper the achievement of many children. Readers will learn:The principles that underlie an effective sustained silent reading program, A five-step process for using sustained silent reading to enhance background knowledge, A six-step process for direct instruction in vocabulary in each discipline, The vocabulary terms critical to students' success in every academic subject.

Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher's Manual will help educators guide students in using tools and activities that will deepen their understanding of critical academic vocabulary.  It contains the following:  A method to help teachers and schools determine which vocabulary terms are most essential for their needs; a six-step process for direct instruction in subject area vocabulary; and a 'how to' for using student notebooks. The manual also contains samples and blackline masters for a variety of games and activities to reinforce and refine student understanding of the academic terms and concepts they learn, as well as comprehensive list of vocabulary terms, organised into eleven subject areas and four year-level categories.

This book explores recent neurological findings in a user-friendly dialogue, and offers ideas and strategies for engaging with boys in a proactive and positive fashion. If you are interested in looking at 'boyhood' from a neurological lens, then this book is for you. If you are looking to understand why boys do some of the things they do, then this book is for you. If you want to know why many boys are fidgety, aggressive, emotionally disadvantaged and over-represented in areas of learning and behaviour difficulties, then this book is for you.

Practical suggestions for performance assessments with extensive examples of classroom tasks that help students achieve the deepest type of learning and active construction of knowledge. Tells how to score performance assessment and track student achievement.

This book demonstrates how portfolios and student led conferences support the authentic assessment of the ‘whole child’. A step by step approach is used to understand the context, develop the content and celebrate the results of the use of portfolios and their integral role within powerful student led conferences. The underlying principle of this process is the use of metacognition in the classroom, which enables students to take genuine responsibility for their learning. A step by step process is utilised throughout this book, enabling every classroom teacher to embark on the portfolio to student led conference journey based on their own individual needs and those of their students and school community.

UbD authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe describe how to start with your school's mission and goals and develop a powerful school improvement plan focused on desired results. Learn how to use UbD's backward-design process to determine the evidence for your plan's success and to plan improvement steps in instruction and leadership roles. Get dozens of action ideas for starting the school improvement process and keeping it going, plus samples of curriculum frameworks and assessment rubrics, and a three-stage school improvement planning process with specific tactics for each stage.

In The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction, author Robert J. Marzano presents a model for ensuring quality teaching that balances the necessity of research-based data with the equally vital need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of individual students. Filled with charts, rubrics and organisers, this methodical, user-friendly guide will help teachers examine and develop their knowledge and skills, so they can achieve that dynamic fusion of art and science that results in exceptional teaching and outstanding student achievement.

This practical volume examines how the female brain impacts on how a girl engages with the world around her, and plays a crucial and often gender-specific role in how she behaves and learns. It looks at the differences that exist between boys and girls, how the female brain differs from the male brain, and how all of this can impact on behaviour, learning and overall growth and development. Finally, using information from the earlier chapters, it focuses on three particular areas - emotions, relationships and schooling. It's a girl thing provides us with a framework for creating social and learning environments that recognise the intricacies of the developing female brain.

This unique and ground-breaking book is the result of 15 years research and synthesises over 800 meta-analyses on the influences on achievement in school-aged students. It builds a story about the power of teachers, feedback, and a model of learning and understanding. Areas covered include the influence of the student, home, school, curricula, teacher, and teaching strategies. This book is about using evidence to build and defend a model of teaching and learning. A major contribution is a fascinating benchmark/dashboard for comparing many innovations in teaching and schools.

Effective school leadership does not have to be a losing battle. This book helps leadership teams go beyond excuses to capitalise on their strengths, and reduce weaknesses. The Leadership for Learning Framework challenges readers to consider that student achievement is more than test results. When the focus is on test scores, leaders fail to measure and understand the importance of their own actions, and they are encouraged to look deeper into their results and become “Leading” educators, who achieve high results and understand how their actions influence their success. Incorporating leadership maps, and crammed with leadership tips, The Learning Leader will help readers reconceptualise their leadership role and motivate their colleagues to be better educators for their students.

Author Douglas B. Reeves illuminates the way forward to higher student achievement through a framework for teacher leadership. Learn why the best way to expand and extend the most powerful teaching strategies is for teachers to observe the practices of other teachers and school administrators to build teacher leader networks that encourage the sharing of effective instructional practice. Explore the essential elements of a teacher leader framework that promotes deep implementation of effective teaching practices. And get practical ways to support networks of teacher leaders at the school, district, and state levels.

Schooling By Design: An ASCD Action Tool is an essential toolkit for anyone who wants to apply the principles of Understanding by Design to system-wide school improvement. Inside is a collection of proven tools for accomplishing the tasks identified in the best-selling book, Schooling by Design. Each tool gives you concrete strategies and tactics to further key areas of your school improvement plan from clarifying the mission to analysing your results. Included with the tools are why and how to use each strategy or tactic, and examples to ease implementation. An accompanying CD-ROM contains all of the tools plus additional bonus tools.

Emotional Intelligence has become a staple of highly effective leaders who want to lead schools where teachers want to teach and students want to learn. In Inspire, Motivate, Collaborate: Leading with Emotional Intelligence, author Bobby Moore, describes how school leaders can establish successful relationships, lead change, and deal with emotions in turbulent times, to cultivate cultures of excellence in their learning communities. Case studies, self- and staff assessment tools and guided questions for study and reflection make this a complete self-study guide to Emotional Intelligence.

Use this handy guide to get your Professional Learning Community (PLC) engaged, energised and ready to implement differentiated instruction. Everything you need to organise and run your PLC - including agendas, schedules, handouts, and background readings - is included. With enough materials for seven sessions in total, you can focus your PLC on all of the critical issues related to differentiated instruction. Easy-to-use charts, checklists and templates support every step of getting started and keeping your PLC on track.

Using real examples of primary and secondary schools that have moved change from rhetoric to reality, a giant in the field of school leadership explains how teachers and administrators everywhere can make sure change efforts lead to better results. Whether your school needs to improve literacy, inspire great teaching, increase attendance, reduce dropout rates, reform assessment or reach any other accountability, let Douglas Reeves equip you with what you need to succeed. These lessons have been learned from the author’s work with thousands of schools around the world.

Pete Hall and Alisa Simeral lay out a practical pathway towards higher student achievement.  Increase instructional effectiveness by implementing the principles of strength-based school improvement. Filled with clear, proven strategies and organised around two easy-to-use tools – the innovative Continuum of Self-Reflection and a feedback-focused walk-through model – this book offers a differentiated approach to coaching and supervision centred on identifying and nurturing teachers’ individual strengths and helping them reach new levels of professional success and satisfaction. Anecdotes and examples from the field ensure you know what to look for, do and say in order to start seeing positive results.

This DVD features: Carol Ann Tomlinson on Differentiated Instruction; Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe on Understanding by Design; and Robert Marzano on What Works in Schools. This recording gives you a front row seat and backstage access to interviews with the panellists.

In part two, Marzano guides viewers through classroom examples of effective management strategies, including: engaging students; establishing and maintaining rules and procedures; creating and maintaining effective relationships with students; and communicating high expectations for all students. A professional development plan with a PowerPoint presentation and teacher handouts is included.

In part one, Marzano guides viewers through classroom examples of effective instructional strategies, including: establishing and communicating learning goals, tracking student progress and celebrating success; helping students interact with new knowledge, practise and deepen their understanding, and generate and test hypotheses. A professional development plan with a PowerPoint presentation and teacher handouts is included.

Whether you’re seeking a basic understanding of Response To Intervention or thorough knowledge for implementation, you need this book. Understanding Response to Intervention drills deep to deliver the nuts and bolts of RTI. Respond to the needs of struggling students by building a pyramid of interventions, solving problems in collaborative teams, and monitoring student progress through data to help every unique learner succeed.

In light of the educational, economic and demographic circumstances faced by Australian schools, authors Austin Buffum, Mike Mattos and Chris Weber explain how Response to Intervention (RTI) is most effective when built on the Professional Learning Communities at Work™ model. Obtain a clear picture of how to create a three-tiered pyramid response to intervention to help ensure that students learn and resolve any behavioural problems. Over a dozen activities are included to help guide teams in evaluating their current system, building strong interventions, and creating a successful and compliant pyramid response to intervention.

Get your students excited about vocabulary learning with these thirteen fun games designed for students at all levels. Puzzle stories, category creators, word harvests and much more make learning easy and fun. The step-by-step approach clearly explains the design, set up, materials and directions for each game, and an extensive appendix is filled with vocabulary terms that are considered critical based on educational research by the Marzano Institute. This Revised Australian edition offers sample questions, suggestions and examples to help you teach each game.

This second edition of the best-selling Action Tool gives you more than 60 tools - with tips and implementation steps - for creating and using formative assessments in every year level and subject. Teacher Tools make it easier for teachers. Plus, a series of Student Tools help teach formative assessment strategies that students can use after receiving an assignment, during instruction, while completing work, and before or after a summative assessment. All tools include clear instructions for use, suggestions for variations and guidance on next steps. With this book every teacher can quickly learn effective ways to improve their assessment practices.

Student engagement is a central aspect of effective teaching. This text offers an in depth understanding of how to generate high levels of student attention and engagement to maximize learning potential. Part of ‘The Classroom Strategies Series’, The Highly Engaged Classroom includes real classroom examples and strategies for achieving high engagement based on comprehensive research. Strategies range from capturing attention by connecting lessons to students’ interests, to incorporating physical movement to lift energy or to further understanding. Each chapter includes extensive exercises to reinforce the reader’s understanding of the content.

In this guide for teachers, administrators and policymakers, Reeves answers how we can create and sustain professional learning programs that actually lead to improved student achievement. First he casts a critical eye on professional learning that is inconsistent, unfocused and ultimately ineffective, and explains why elaborate planning documents and brand-name programs are not enough to achieve desired outcomes. Reeves outlines how educators can improve this situation by: taking specific steps to move from vision to implementation; focusing on four essentials - teaching, curriculum, assessment and leadership; making action research work; moving beyond the “train the trainer” model; and using performance assessment systems.

In this book, assessment expert Susan M. Brookhart brings you up to speed on how to develop and use test questions and other assessments that reveal how well your students can analyse, reason, solve problems and think creatively. Whether you want to create formative or summative assessments, this book has what you need to create well-designed assessments that can bring thinking out of your students’ heads and make it visible in their words and actions. Brookhart defines and describes aspects of higher order thinking according to the categories established in leading taxonomies, giving specific guidance on how to assess students in those areas.

This informal and enlightening presentation offers in-depth ideas on how both learning approaches can work symbiotically to achieve targeted learning outcomes. The conversational style of this program delivers crucial information about these methodologies you won’t want to miss. This program also looks forward to how both DI and UbD approaches can meet the demands of a fast-changing education landscape of 21st century learning. Join in the conversation with Carol and Jay!

A system in which struggling students must fail before they can receive additional support is being replaced by comprehensive systems of interventions. In this breakout session, Mike Mattos provides an accessible survey of response to intervention (RTI) systems and explains how RTI, combined with a PLC foundation, creates a powerful system for achieving high levels of learning for all students. In accessible language, Mattos uses engaging examples to provide an overview of this innovative and effective approach. He analyses the essential features of RTI and shows how each relies on PLC practices to be truly successful. With great humour, integrity and insight, Mattos shows educations how PLC and RTI practices align to promote excellence for all students.

The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units offers instructional modules on the basic concepts and elements of Understanding by Design (UbD), the "backward design" approach used by thousands of educators to create curriculum units and assessments that focus on developing students' understanding of important ideas. The eight modules are organised around the UbD Template Version 2.0 and feature components similar to what is typically provided in a UbD design workshop, including: Discussion and explanation of key ideas in the module; Guiding exercises, worksheets and design tips.

Like in his landmark book The Art and Science of Teaching, Robert Marzano and his co-authors once again make a definitive case based on extensive research. Find out what it takes to create a teacher supervision and evaluation system that’s more apt to lead to higher student achievement, including: *Five school-level conditions that are essential to systematically developing teacher expertise. *Four domains of teaching practice that provide a focus for instructional improvement. *Five ways to provide teacher feedback that avoids the pitfalls of a checklist approach. The authors open your eyes to broad principles of effective supervision that apply to all kinds of schools.

Implementing the action steps from the ‘The Art and Science of Teaching’ is much easier when you use this in-depth resource for workshops, professional learning communities, teacher training and self-help. Hundreds of samples, guidelines, checklists and activities help teachers in all year levels and subjects become instant experts on Marzano's breakthrough framework for effective instruction. A series of 25 modules equips any teacher with a logical planning sequence to ensure you: establish learning goals and track progress, help students interact with new knowledge and develop effective relationships.

The ideas and examples in this book help teachers successfully collaborate to raise student achievement through the use of formative assessments. Here, Todd Stanley and Betsy Moore, educators with over 40 years of combined experience, offer proven formative assessment strategies to teachers in a professional learning community. Contents include: Why a PLC?, How to Work Effectively in a Group, How to Write Assessments, Adjustments in the Classroom, Keeping Up with Collaboration. If you’re looking to extend the benefits of formative assessments throughout your school, this user-friendly guide will help to unite teachers in improving classroom learning!

Drawing on recent research findings, this book shows how leaders can pare down from a proliferation of initiatives to determine what is truly most important based on their local concerns, challenges, populations and other school factors. Identifying a specific set of leadership practices that are more strongly associated with improvements in student achievement, Reeves provides explicit guidelines for how school leaders can improve their most critical leadership decisions by simultaneously engaging in three essential strategies: monitoring teaching and leadership practices, building high degrees of efficacy among staff members and focusing on a smaller number of priorities. This book is essential reading for principals, teacher leaders and PLC book study groups.

Educating students to traditional literacy standards is no longer enough. If students are to thrive in their academic and 21st-century careers, then independent and creative thinking hold the highest currency. The authors explain in detail how to add these new components of literacy: Solution Fluency, Information Fluency, Creativity Fluency, Collaboration Fluency. Students must master a completely different set of skills to succeed in a culture of technology-driven automation, abundance, and access to global labor markets. The authors present an effective framework for integrating comprehensive literacy or fluency into the traditional curriculum.

Differentiation is the core of the art and science of teaching. However, even masters of this art may not be effective in the classroom if they don’t have a basic understanding of how the human brain grows, develops and learns. To successfully implement differentiation strategies, educators must design and orchestrate a brain-compatible environment. Think Big, Start Small pares down the vast field of neuroscience and provides educators with the brain basics needed to create a classroom that enhances learning.

The sequel to Pyramid Response to Intervention advocates that a successful RTI model begins by asking the right questions to create a fundamentally effective learning environment for every student. RTI is not a series of implementation steps, but rather a way of thinking. Readers of this book will learn how to: use the four essential guiding principles to guide thinking and implementation; Build team structures for collaboration; Create a toolbox of effective interventions; Develop a system of convergent assessment to identify students for intervention, determine their unique needs, monitor progress, and revise or extend learning; Address complex issues such as motivation, behaviour, English language proficiency, and intense academic struggles.

Visible Learning for Teachers takes the next step and brings those ground breaking concepts to a completely new audience. Written for students, pre-service and in-service teachers, it explains how to apply the principles of Visible Learning to any classroom anywhere in the world. The author offers concise and user-friendly summaries of the most successful interventions and offers practical step by step guidance to the successful implementation of visible learning and visible teaching in the classroom. Visible Learning for Teachers is a must read for any student or teacher who wants an evidence based answer to the question; ‘how do we maximise achievement in our schools?

In this book, the authors acknowledge the structural and sociological issues that contribute to low-performing schools, and describe how leaders can create a healthy school culture. They offer strategies and activities to improve classroom management, increase literacy, establish academic vocabulary, and create an engaging environment. Examine four broad steps to developing a positive learning environment (aligning philosophies, managing frustration, creating a culture of collaboration, and institutionalizing a healthy culture) and uncover the components of responsive pedagogy—a balanced framework of traditional and culturally responsive classroom activities.

This guide offers instructional modules on how to refine units created using Understanding by Design (UbD) and how to effectively review the units using self-assessment and peer review, along with observation and supervision. The guide builds upon its companion and predecessor, The Understanding By Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units and is intended for use by individuals or groups in K–16 education who want to further develop their skills in UbD. Users can work through the modules in order or pick and choose, depending on their interests and needs.

Strong leadership is essential to an educational environment, and with this book educators will learn how to apply tested leadership lessons and skills to their school environment. Teachers will find themselves absorbing the lessons contained within Lead On! quickly and effectively, with chapters including: Get Motivated, Embrace Change, Supera Diem, and The Principalship. Each chapter contains many lessons and ideas for educators to employ at their own schools, as well as a set of reflection questions to make sure you are employing all your skills in being a capable and driven leader.

Becoming a Reflective Teacher demonstrates the importance of reflective practice—an essential component in developing expertise in teaching. Robert J Marzano and his colleagues present research- and theory-based strategies that combine a model of effective instruction with goal setting, focused practice, focused feedback, and observations and discussions of teaching to improve the instructional practices of all P–12 educators. This book includes a detailed compendium of over 270 ready-to-use strategies organised under 41 elements of effective teaching, along with reproducible self-assessment scales for each element.

Filled with down-to-earth ideas, suggestions, strategies, and techniques, The Co-Teaching Book of Lists provides educators with a hands-on resource for making the co-teaching experience a success. Written by educator and popular teacher trainer Kathy Perez, this book gives educators a classroom-tested and user-friendly reference for the co-taught classroom. Topics covered include: roles and responsibilities; setting up the classroom; establishing classroom climate; effective accommodations and modifications for students; goal-setting; negotiating conflicts; scheduling issues; and more. This easily accessible reference presents numerous positive and ready-to-use tips, strategies, and resources for collaborative teaching and student success.

Two experienced practitioners of the flipped classroom explain a powerful approach to teaching where students watch recorded lectures for homework and complete their assignments, labs and tests in class. Discover how this "flipped classroom" approach helps struggling students, differentiates instruction and increases opportunities for classroom formative assessment.

Coaching Classroom Instruction demonstrates the importance of coaching - an essential component in effective teaching. This book includes 280 research-based classroom strategies, organised under forty-one elements of effective teaching, to help coaches move teachers through the five levels of Marzano's teacher progress scale. Coaching Classroom Instruction also features additional resources for the text, including reproducible copies of the comprehension questions from the guide, forty-one web-only resources taken from Robert J Marzano's website that supplement the lessons found in the text, and a list of additional resources for reflective practice.

Essential questions (EQs) help target standards as you organise curriculum content into coherent units that yield focused and thoughtful learning. Offering dozens of examples, Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding explores the usefulness of EQs in all P–12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as maths, PE, language instruction and arts education. Learn how to create a culture of inquiry so that all members of the educational community – students, teachers and administrators – benefit from the increased rigour and deepened understanding that emerge when essential questions become a guiding force for learners of all ages.

In this comprehensive guide, the author identifies two essential components of effective rubrics: (1) criteria that relate to the learning (not the "tasks") students are being asked to demonstrate and (2) clear descriptions of performance across a continuum of quality. She outlines the difference between various kinds of rubrics, explains when using each type of rubric is appropriate and highlights examples from all grade levels and assorted content areas. Intended for educators who are already familiar with rubrics as well as those who are not, this book is a complete resource for writing effective rubrics and for choosing wisely from among the many rubrics that are available on the Internet and from other sources.